As a result of the mandatory lockdown due to COVID-19, the unemployment rate of our country climbed to 17.7% or 7.2 million back in April. After easing some restrictions and businesses slowly bringing back their operations, the unemployment rate did improve to 8.7%. Even with such improvement, companies are now faced with an inevitable challenge to innovate when it comes to their workforce – hiring skills-based employees to face the future.
In what seems like ages ago, earning a college degree used to be a stepping stone to launch a professional career. This concept has drastically changed with the adaptation of the current remote work set-up. It has become evident that employers need to adapt and acknowledge that non-degree skills-based recruiting is the only way to go in building a future-proof organization.
To fully adapt to such a shift, businesses need to combine collaboration with data analysis. This will allow them to identify the specific skills needed – hard or soft- to fill in their vacancies and make their organization ready for the future.
Below are three critical steps businesses might want to consider:
Identifying the skills that employers need.
Through collaborations with the top companies, HR recruiters may identify the skills required for their current workforce needs. Organizations can also use the data collected to help improve their employees’ training programs, using more advanced online learning platforms.
Identifying existing skills in the organization.
As skills evolve, companies might want to collect as much data and information they could from their existing workforce. This way, organizations will be able to specifically identify specific skills that need further improvement and/or retention.
Enhancing public-private data sharing of skills.
Companies should also commit to exchanging real-time employment and expertise data to transparent and collaborative platforms. One example is work with policymakers in tying together businesses through voluntary data reporting schemes that will allow further transparency within the ecosystem.
Indeed, while college degrees are pivotal when it comes to qualifications, focusing too much on them might cause employers to overlook other crucial attributes of the candidate particularly the essential and actual skills required for the job. Top global companies have now recognized the need for such practice. Apple, Tesla, and Siemens have all been vocal about the emphasis on skills-based hiring rather than focusing solely on academic performance.
With more people working remotely, the practice of skills-based hiring has become more prevalent across industries. Without mutual collaboration and specific steps taken by both businesses and policy-makers, companies might end up at risk of becoming even further behind rather than be well-equipped when it comes to their workforce, causing further instability to the overall economy.
